People line up in June to see a duplicate of the 13th Amendment at an exhibit in Raleigh, N.C., on abolishing slavery. AP file photo

Written by

Jim Liske

On Sept. 15, 1963, the bomb that killed four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, showed America just how far we had to go to fulfill the promise of justice and equality for all, even a century after the 13th Amendment ended slavery.

Half a century after the bombing, the struggle is not over, in part because language in that same amendment still undermines the equal humanity of more than 7 million Americans who have been convicted of a crime.

Ratified at the end of the Civil War, the amendment abolished slavery, with one critical exception: Slavery and involuntary ...